captain's log

Bully for Brontosaurus is another excellent book of essays by Stephen Jay Gould, who for decades wrote monthly columns for Natural History  magazine. Gould, generously, takes to updates his essays in preparation for republication in anthologies like Bully. Such updates may take the form of a footnote, an afterward, or (sometimes parenthetical) phrases within the body of an essay, e.g. “see essay #14 for more on this topic.” The end result is collection of essays which seem thoughtfully curated, even thought the topics vary (very much).

One feature which differentiates Bully from many other Gould books is its evident rootedness in a particular era, in this case the Cold War era*. This is unusual for a few reasons, foremost among them the fact I have read at least 4 other Gould books from this time and it never occurred to me.

* Are we amidst another one? “#TRUMPUTIN”?

Because Gould’s essays span the history of science and geological time, the original writing/publication time is not always evident, often irrelevant. Some essays date themselves, for example those concerning contemporary scientific expeditions (e.g. essays 34,35), legal cases (essay 30), and technologies (essay 4). Other essays lack such a historical context. For example, essays 18 and 19 relate taxonomic disputes about monotremes (e.g. platypus) which were settled by ~1978. As such, Gould could have written these essays any time from 1978 through present day, without necessarily impacting readers. Similarly, essay 11 relates taxonomic disputes about “proto-horses,” settled by the 1950s.

Specifically, Gould’s occasional commentary relating to nuclear weapons places the publication of this book in the Cold War era. For example, in the book’s Prologue* Gould says: “The megatonnage of the extraterrestrial impact that probably triggered the late Cretaceous mass extinctions has been estimated at 10,000 times greater than all the nuclear bombs now stockpiled on earth (pg 17).” He continues to describe the planets slow recovery after that event, which he says occurred at at planetary, not human time scales, and continues: “At this scale, we are powerless to harm; the planet will take care of itself, our puny foolishness notwithstanding.”

* Written prior to 1991.

In isolation, the comparison of the cometary extinction event to the nuclear stockpile may seem like nothing more than an effective, powerful analogy for an otherwise inconceivable event. But there are several cases which indicate, to me, Gould had recently contemplated the mortality (fatality) of the human race closely. Maybe this is something an evolutionary biologist is bound to consider-after all, they study the (differential) survival and exinction of species. Yet, his commentary seems less theoretical than real:

[W]e, pitiful latecomers in the last microsecond of our planetary year [an imaginary unit of planetary time, like “dog years”], are stewards of nothing in the long run (pg 18);

But then again, I could be interpolating. The aforementioned comments also fit into the context of Gould’s thoughts about environmental ethic. It could just be me anticipating a loud blast, followed by the voice of the narrator from Beneath The Planet of The Apes, pronouncing our planet’s fate: “In one of the countless billions of galaxies in the universe, lies a medium-sized star, and one of its satellites, a green and insignificant planet, is now dead.”

(God, such a good movie.)

Back on track, Tommy. Whether a slow death by environmental neglect (or destruction), or a quick death by mass * ((speed of light)^2)) (i.e. E=MC^2), the fate of the species is on the author’s mind. And his sober commentary is most fascinating.

Consider some established facts:

• Our planet is 4.5 billion years old
• >99% of all species that ever lived are extinct (pg 177).
• We (Homo sapiens) have lived for about 200,000 years.
• Our common ancestor with teleosts (bony fish) lived about 300 million years ago (pg 175).

Given those facts, and considering this quotation-“At this scale, we are powerless to harm; the planet will take care of itself, our puny foolishness notwithstanding”-could nuclear power not have crossed Gould’s mind, even if his immediate concern was conservation?

Having just read Susan Sontag’s essay Against Interpretation, I’m not going to belabor this theory any further-maybe Gould used environmental conservation as a cipher for nukes, maybe not. Instead, I’ll pivot and generalize how distinctly human it is to interpret, which is to theorize.

Many of Gould’s essays revisit debunked theories, from frivolous to profound, simplistic to abstruse, lay to academic. Sometimes, lines blur.

However blurry, Gould emphasizes the important that one can test a theory. The scientific method-a procedure of observation and measurement-must validate a theory. It can’t just “seem right”; it must “seem right,” and attempt to measure rightness.

Yet, in so many cases it seems the desire to understand for information to be empirical is dwarfed by a desire to condense information into tautologies-quick, memorable, and conceivable maxims; essentially, slogans.

To some extent, the act of believing a theory which cannot be measured, or believing a theory without understanding its measurement, impoverishes the theory. It takes its richness for granted.

Consider how much this statement from William Jennings Bryan impoverishes the scientific accomplishments of Newton, et al.

“Do we not suspend or overcome the law of gravitation every day? Every time we move a foot or lift a weight we temporarily overcome one of the most universal of natural laws and yet the world is not disturbed” (pg 420).

He leverages an impoverished notion of gravity to validate (immeasurable) biblical miracles, miracles which have been simultaneously enriched and impoverished over time as we’ve debated such features as their literality.

This theme applies to contemporary anti-science, anti-reality movements, like climate change deniers and anti-vaxxers, but Gould’s favorite to rail on is Creationism. In Bully, he runs the gamut-from its origins, to Scopes, to Justice Scalia’s dissenting opinion on the 1987 case “Balanced Treatment for Creation-Science and Evolution-Science Act” (essay 30). He characterizes Scalia’s dissent as a misunderstanding of evolution-specifically, a fixation on what evolution seems to convey about the origin of life: that humans began as blue-green algae. (Not consistent with many of our image of a mankind which was created “in God’s image.”) The implication is there, I’ll grant, but it is not the primary argument; the primary argument is genetic modification occurs via natural and sexual selection in local populations. This is “settled science,” confirmed in so many ways, including study of the geological record (essay 11, among others).

I can safely say, most essays in Bully do not classify as controversial, but in any case contrary views should not diminish Gould’s wonderful storytelling. My favorite story, “The Case of the Creeping Fox Terrier clone” (essay 10), depicts Gould’s stubborn, academic quest to answer this question: Why, for a century, have academic essays and textbooks alike compared the size of Hyracotherium (horse species) to fox terrier? The answer: the comparison has been copied, without much modification, from one source to another for so many decades-like much information in textbooks.

Some other essays I feel inclined to mention, if only as marginalia, include”Male Nipples and Clitoral Ripples” (essay 8), and not just for it’s clever name, which concerns various features of male and female anatomy which exist in one or the other, with or without utility, simply as artifacts of a shared embryonic pathway. Essay 15 describes Petrus Camper’s identification of the “facial angle” as a feature of Greek sculpture and measure of beauty… oh, and a eugenic metric. Essay 17 comments on humans’ difficulty recognizing random distributions (and beautifully describes glow worm caves in New Zealand). Essay 21 is an essay about N.S. Shaler throwing shade on a janitor in a note to Louis Agassiz, which Gould found “In a Jumbled Drawer” (the title of the essay). Lastly, essay 25 concerns the projection of comets onto (way too) many facets of planetary history by William Whiston.

The high quality of Gould’s writing is undeniable, but I admire his empathy more than his writing. Each essay is ostensibly about a topic in natural history, but the anthology represents a transmutation of the parts into a whole, which in turn represents Gould’s attempt to understand the world from every perspective. His treatment of William Whiston is a great example. Whiston was a contemporary of Isaac Newton-“soul mate,” Gould says-whose “cometary theories” in the 17th century sought to explain key events Genesis. Today, much of what he says sounds silly, but Gould is quick to chide our judgment of a scientist of the 17th century:

“Such an assessment of Whiston seems singularly unfair and anachronistic. How can we justify a judgment of modern taxonomies that didn’t exist in the seventeenth century? We dismiss Whiston because he violated ideals of science as we now define the term. But, in Whiston’s time, science did not exist as a separate domain of inquiry [from religious/philosophical studies]” (pg 376).

I will end with an existential quotation of G.K. Chesteron which Gould uses in Bully: “Art is limitation: the essence of every picture is the frame.” Consider it in the context of tautologies, of news, of academic and statistical studies, so on. There is so much information out there and humans have a heck of a hard time distinguishing random distributions from patterns (essay 17).

Careful with the meaning you make of things.

9/10

ISBN # 039330857X

This is part 2 of my “trilogy” of Donald Barthelme essays, wherein I tell you about Paradise. In a previous essay, Re The Dead Father, I introduced my plan to write about the three Barthelme books I recently purchased, which happened to published, if not written, in three different decades*.

* Snow White (1967), The Dead Father (1975), Paradise (1986).

If The Dead Father was allegory for (or acid dream about) the transfer of the family mantle from father to son, then Paradise proceeds into the next decade, when (after getting into cocaine) you decide to take it easy and find your(sober)self. Of, course, the novels are entirely unrelated-I only refer to the spirit, or tone of the novels.

In a sentence, Paradise is about Simon, an architect who is taking a sabbatical from his work and marriage, who invites three down-and-out models to live with him while they figure things out, and who recounts the events to (I presume*) a psychologist. Simon is not particularly interesting, nor are the models, but their banter amused me now and then.

* Consider this dialogue: “Sometimes I think I should have been a shrink.” “Why aren’t you?” “It’s not medicine.” (pg 29) More on this exchange-specifically the form in which it occurs-later.

I’m tempted to stop here, because I didn’t enjoy the book very much (so why spent more time on it?), yet I’m compelled to make some meaning of Simon’s time in “hog heaven,” as the girls describe his state of affairs while cohabiting with him.

Certainly, the title Paradise and occasional utterance of “hog heaven” hints at a theme. Barthelme wants us to think: What is the essence of such things as paradise and hog heaven? But the answer can’t be as simple as this, can it?-“Simon is an older guy who lives and has sex with three younger lingerie models, sounds pretty much like heaven, duh.”

Or is it that stimple? This dialogue between Simon and the (presumptive) psychologist-who, for all we know, may actually be a bartender, or a stranger on a bench-hints otherwise:

“These women spread out before you like lotus blossoms” “Not exactly like lotus blossoms.” “Open, blooming…” “More like anthills. Splendid, stinging anthills[..] The ants are plunging toothpicks into your scrotum, as it were. As the withdraw the toothpicks, little particles of flesh like shreds of ground beef adhere to the toothpicks” (pg 30).

I suspect “splendid, stinging anthill” is a euphemism for pubic hair of a certain length. In any case, Simon’s doesn’t sound like a conventional hog heaven.

Nor does Simon sound very conventional. Barthelme only scantly fills in Simon’s history. We learn tidbits about his past here and there. For example, he is a man who had, on formal occasions, worn a dog collar instead of a tie (“most sportif,” the narrator say) (pg 36); he describes his first sexual experience like so:

He thinks for a moment. “I was about ten. This teacher asked us all to make little churches for a display, kind of a model of a church. I made one out of cardboard, worked very hard on it, and took it in to her on a Friday morning, and she was pleased with it[..] Then another guy, Billy something-or-other, brought in one that was made of wood. His was better than mine. So she tossed mine out and used his” (pg 19).

Can such an explanation of a sexual experience be interpreted as anything other than ironic-as a commentary on naive awareness of sexuality as sexuality?

Here’s another thought: maybe Simon is in hog heaven, but not for the reasons other characters believe (e.g. sex). The narrator reflects, “Something to be said for being fifty-three [Simon’s age], you could enjoy the turning of the wheel. He feels every additional day a great boon” (pg 42). There’s something to be said for simply being alive, the narrator seems to imply. The awareness of opportunity implies the possibility of hog heaven, which is tantamount to living being in (realized or unrealized) hog heaven.

In other words, if Simon is not in hog heaven then it is only because he does not acknowledge it. “When he asked himself what he was doing, living in a bare elegant almost unfurnished New York apartment with three young and beautiful women, Simon had to admit that he did not know what he was doing. He was, he supposed, listening” (59). He either declines to make meaning of his situation, or simply doesn’t think to.

Consider that position in the context of this exchange:

[Veronica:] “Is this a male fantasy for you? This situation?” [Simon:] “It’s not a fantasy, is it.” [V:] “It has the structure of a male fantasy.”; [S:] “The dumbest possible way to look at it” (pg 55).

These questions come to mind: (1) what is a less dumb way to look at it, and (2) what makes Veronica’s way of looking at it “the dumbest”?

I’ll try to answer these questions by way of other questions:

Wouldn’t one’s awareness that they are in paradise be intuitive? Would they need to work it out, or be persuaded? Would that awareness be more endogenous than exogenous? Would it come from within, or without? 

To me, acquiring such awareness by reason, or persuasion-based on such things as “structure”-seems “dumb.” The idea of convincing oneself, or another, to believe they are in paradise, seems dumb. Yet, these are analogous to the questions René Descartes considered when he came to the conclusion “I think, therefore I am.”

Simon once says “The absence of a plan is itself a plan” (pg 72). But what does that statement, applied as a philosophy, say about paradise? Something like this, maybe? Whether I’m in paradise or not, I’m in whatever I’m in, so I’ll operate without considering that variable. 

Let’s pivot now to consider the women in the story. Interestingly, while various personages describes Simon’s situation as hog heaven, they describe the women’s situation as a “waiting room” (pg 50).

Simon was a way station, a bed-and-breakfast, a youth hostel, a staging area, a C-141 with the jumpers of the 82nd Airborne lined up at the door (pg 168).

At the same time, Simon seems to be waiting too, so in a sense he is both a waiting man (name of a great King Crimson song), and a waiting room.

Now, a little bit more about the women. I mentioned they worked as lingerie models, then lived and copulated with Simon, but what else? They are frustrated. They want more, if not different. For them, no possibility seems to have long-term appeal. Barthelme says, “There was no place in the world for these women whom he loved, no good place. They could join the underemployed half-crazed demi-poor, or they could be wives, those were the choices” (pg 168).

Or, those seemed to be the choices. When Dore complains she feels useless, Simon challenges her:

What do you want to do? Be bad, imagine something bad. “Like what?” “I have to tell you what to imagine?” (pg 182).

Simon is supportive, but in a passive way-if things work out, great; if not, that’s OK too. Who’s to say whether or not that’s appropriate? Remember, Simon isn’t much more than a stranger. Yet, they have affection for one another. As such, Dore interprets Simon’s passivity as indifference, which creates tension. She wants more from him, but she’s aware that may not be appropriate.

Veronica has similar problems negotiating her relationship with Simon. “You’re not a father figure,” she tells him;”You’re more like a guy who’s stayed out in the rain too long” (pg 112), whatever that means. When Simon tries to comfort Veronica, she interprets it as coddling. Furthermore, she interprets it as enabling her dependence upon him, and by extension, men generally-as indicated by these quotations: “It’s the fault of men. As a group”; “They don’t want us to bloom and flower” (pg 197).

Tim, an amusing but not particularly significant character named who one of the girls dates, delivers the following line: “The idea of progress is philosophically dubious” (pg 118).  I’m excited to explore this idea in a forthcoming essay vis a vis Bully For Brontosaurus, by Stephen Jay Gould. It encompasses a theme in evolutionary history: the fallacy of progress. Barthelme’s approach to the theme isn’t as academic, but his it may be as lofty, more accessible. For now, I’ll put it like this: aspire to equanimity, and mind the difference between it and complacence. Or, maintain a calm mental state, but not at the expense of passion.

Simon equanimity tends toward dispassion, and dull cynicism. Simon applies this tendency in some amusing quips about inane topics, like frozen pizza: “I could make a nuclear weapon with less stuff than this pizza’s got in it” (pg 92). Or, university systems: “Simon had opposed the Vietnam war in all possible ways short of self-immolation but could not deny that it was a war constructed by people who had labored through Psychology I, II, III, IV, and Main Current in Western Thought” (pg  169).

Anne describes Simon’s attitude as one of fatigue and disgust (pg 187), but those words are too strong. I prefer the word “dispassionate,” or “aloof.” He considers things with girls as “a state or condition visited upon him, like being in the army.” In both cases, his standard operating procedure consisted of “doing the best he could from day to day” (pg 187).

He gets by. He survives; he doesn’t thrive.

All this said, Simon’s a fun character. He’s charming, witty. If your impression has been otherwise, maybe I’ve weighted his “heavier” tendencies too heavily.

Or, maybe I’ve weighted his tendencies we tend to view as “heavier” too heavily. Simon’s description of life as “states or conditions visited upon us” may strike us as uninspired, even sad and impersonal, but should it? It may not be the most flowery language, but it is not inherently negative. If it seems negative, I believe it is connoted by others, not denoted by Simon. Like the expression a glass is “half-full,” or “half-empty.” Or like observing both (1) dying is a function of living, and (2) living is a function of dying. Both are versions of, as Anne says, “WAD”: Whirling Around the Drain (pg 195).

So let’s say life is a sequence of “states or conditions visited upon us,” then what’s paradise?

I don’t know. I think that’s the point: Paradise is not about paradise; characters think it is.

Earlier, I mentioned I would expand on the role of the presumptive psychologist-specifically, the form in which Barthelme wrote Simon’s dialogue with this character: short chapters resembling “Q&A” format pepper Paradise. Interestingly, “Q” is not always a question, and what follows “A” is not always an answer-or even a direct response-to the preceding Q. It doesn’t take long to learn you should treat “Q” and “A” as variables storing “Psychologist” (or whoever it is) and “Simon”, respectively. This is Barthelme using a conventional form in a creative way, which consequently piques the reader’s interest in a number of ways. We never learn much about Q, but this admission amused me:

Myself, I think about being just sort of a regular person, one who worries about cancer a lot, every little thing a prediction of cancer, no I don’t want to go for my every-two-years-checkup because what if they find something? I wonder what will kill me and when it will happen and how it will happen, and I wonder about my parents, who are still alive, and what will happen to them (pg 77).

Sheesh, you don’t need to stare into the drain as you whirl around it-look away!

6/10

ISBN # 0 14 010358 9